my careless contagion

This is a goodbye, and a hello. This will likely be my last post containing certain themes. It's not that I haven't let go. It's that some things still affect me. In all these things, my choice was to make things work. It was only with great reluctance that I was made to let go. I approached every relationship with kindness and patience. This isn't about healing. I will heal the rest of my life. Letting go is different. I had to try everything — and fail — first. It's a story that repeated. I was more than intentional. I showed up. I loved, was pushed away, and died over and over. Finally, I let go.  They say if a writer falls in love with you, you never die.  The last thing I remember was her small frame standing in the doorway crying. Fade Into You was playing from the turntable. The blonde girl walking on the dark street was so drunk, but when she saw me standing in the Ohio drizzle that night with nothing but the sodium lights illuminating us, she said something...

It's official. I have a new place. Back on my own again. Or, I will be, as soon as I sign the lease agreement today and then slowly move my things, starting who knows when.  Feeling I hadn't given a proper explanation about the whole scenario, I decided to pen something now that the process is nearly complete.  It was late March of last year when I propositioned my ex with an email that contained more than 30 points of consideration. The gist of it was I suggested allowing me to move into her house that she rented outside our old town in South Dakota. I offered to help with rent in exchange for allowing me some space of my own (the attic room where my TV, computer, and desk would sit and my bed would be in my son's room). The idea was we would save money for a future move, a move that would see us moving as one unit for the stability of all. I was mainly concerned about how our son would handle the move. I imagined buying a house was the way to go because it would finally g...

Hey, welcome back. This post makes some generalizations  (which is always fun and probably wrong)  about my new town, Kearney, Nebraska. This may be part one of a multi-part series. Or not.  It is interesting to move to a new place because you take your old assumptions and past experiences with you. You apply those to the new place. Your mind is constantly comparing and contrasting. For a while. And then you are home and you like your new place (and I do like my new place). In fact, I haven't wanted to go back from whence I came. When I left, I took a short hike by myself as I often did. It was cold, as I recall, and two gray jays (also known as camp robbers) were keeping a close eye on me, swooping from one tree to another and following me along the trail. As I reached the end of the trail, I knew it would likely be my last time hiking there. I told those watchful jays that I likely wouldn't be back so to "take care of the place." And that was it.  These are not jud...

An open letter to the place I lived (slightly edited from the original).  After more than seven years of living and working in Southern Black Hills, it's time for me to leave. If you don't know who I am, you are certainly forgiven. Judging by the number of people who called me Jason or Justin or Jimmy or "that guy" during my tenure here, not many even knew I existed. I worked on many projects over the years and various publications. Those numerous publications are what I've been helping produce for the last seven-plus years. The publishing industry is always changing. And so are we, our needs and our lives.  I saw some of the best and worst things in my life happen here in the Black Hills, from the birth of my son to my divorce which I initiated back in 2012 or so and finalized in 2018. I came here in part because I wanted to give my marriage another try. There was a lot of trying and failing, in general, but that's just life. What made my stay here unique wer...

What's this, I made another trip to Nebraska? Yes. It was supposed to be a short trip (I didn't even take photos), just me seeing someone about a job and trying to find a place to live. I later changed my mind and invited my ex to come down also if she could make appointments for whatever. She did, and it was a good idea. Oh, and I got to see Cindy.  I don't know how much I can write in the coming days. Things are moving quickly. I have several possibilities for jobs, even invitations to "come try it out and see if you like it." My ex had a couple of interviews for three positions. I am consistently impressed by the people in Nebraska. They are not all kind and genuine, I know, but many are. Whereas in South Dakota if I had a good interaction with a person, I would consider it rare and it would make my day, in Nebraska, it seems such interactions are common.  Oh, and Kate and I put in an application for a place to live: a nice, newly-renovated home on wheels. What...

It was time once again for a trip to Nebraska, this time to check out a little town and see if it would be a nice place to live. I made this trip with my ex and my son (who felt awful, the cause of which we never ascertained, half of the trip). It was an interesting trip. Good things and bad things happened. Shall we? We stayed in Kearney, "the Sandhill Crane capital of the world," at what I'm told is the finest place in town, EconoLodge. My son simply referred to it as "the Lodge." He was excited, even taking photos of all the rooms (all two). He especially liked the bathtub, since he doesn't have one at home. He also liked the blueberry muffins for breakfast. But we did more than lounge around the hotel room and take naps. We also visited places in town, namely the many parks. My son didn't feel well for most of our trip, but we managed to see some sights. We left in a driving rain, but the sun soon came out and left a rainbow before us.  But all was n...